The 80's were the golden age for creativity in video
games. While now you get lots of
shooters or driving games, back then you got puzzlers that make no sense if you
think about them but are addicting to play.
Q*Bert is a great example of that, and the Atari 2600 version of the
game is still addicting to play.

You are playing as Q*Bert, an alien creature who has decided
to change all the squares on a pyramid from one color to another. Why?
Why not? We're never given a
reason to back story as far as I've heard, but then again, why is Pac-Man
eating all those dots. Because they are
there.

Anyway, it's a six level pyramid, which means there are 21
blocks that Q*Bert must hit in order to advance to the next level. All he has to do is jump on them. Sounds easy enough, right?

Not so fast. What
kind of game would this be in all you had to do is jump from level to
level? You've got Coily, a snake that
starts as a purple ball and becomes a snake when he hits the bottom of the
pyramid. As a ball, he just goes
straight down, but as a snake, he follows you around the pyramid, trying to
kill you. Then there's Sam, another
alien dude who changes the color of any square he lands on back to the original
color. Still not challenging
enough? The only game variation is with
the game difficulty switches in the back of the Atari 2600 consul. If you put the switch in A (always the more
difficult position), you also get red balls that fall down on you and try to
squash you. They fall off the bottom of
the pyramid, but they can make it easy for Coily to corner you.

Fortunately, you do have some ways to fight back. There is a green ball that will freeze
everyone for a few seconds, allowing you to get away if you watch it. You can stop Sam in his tracks by landing on
him. And there are flying saucers on the
edge of the pyramid that allow you to lure Coily off the pyramid (taking all
the other characters with him) and deposit you back at the top.

Just when you think you've got the hang of things, they make
it more complicated by giving you an intermediate color, so you have to hit
every square twice. Then, the squares
don't stick with the final color but change every time you land on them. That's when this game goes from being a fun
challenge to a fast moving puzzle game.

You start with four lives, and the goal is to wrack up the
highest level and point total you can before you lose them all. And did I mention you can also lose a life by
jumping off the pyramid?

Either way, it's highly addicting. I sat down to play it to refresh my memory
and wound up having to force myself to stop to get on with other things. It's simple enough in concept that anyone
will understand, but it's harder than it seems it should be. Just one more round is an easy justification
to make as you try to beat your last score/level total.

The game requires the basic Atari joystick. The fire button only starts a new game. The instructions recommend turning the
joystick in your hand since you use nothing but the diagonal directions. I did that, and I had absolutely no trouble
controlling Q*Bert. In fact, more often
than not, my deaths were from my own stupidity.
They certainly weren't from the controls.

The graphics are decent enough for an Atari game. They certainly aren't arcade quality or up to
today's standards. But you can follow
who the various characters are and who to avoid. That's all that really matters.

The colors are mostly okay.
The various characters are all distinct enough, which is important when
it comes to recognizing the green ball versus the other balls. A couple of times, the color you are turning
blocks into is hard to tell from the color you are starting with. In one case, you can only see the tops of the
pyramid blocks. I'm not sure why those
color choices were made, but you can get through the levels even though they
are harder than they need to be.

The sounds are pretty basic and repetitive. You and Coily make noises every time you jump
from block to block, and the various balls and Sam make noise as well. There's some music when you finish and level and
when you jump on the saucers. Nothing
exciting, but once you get concentrating on the game, you start to cue your
movements off the noise without even thinking about it. In fact, it was amazing to me how quickly I
fell back into those habits even though I haven't played the game for years.

And I need to fix that because I've been reminded just how
much fun this game is. 30 years out, and
Q*Bert for the Atari 2600 is still an addicting game that is a blast to
play. This is one to definitely track down
and add to your collection.

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I'm an accountant by trade but a reviewer at heart. Top reviewer at Amazon. Love to read, watch TV and movies, and listen to music. And I'm always looking to share and discuss what I am currently consuming.

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